Applying 1.10 to 1.15 Gamma usually does the trick.Īlso, bump Contrast and Vibrance according to taste (and to come closer to high-contrast/saturation settings in camera).Įvery RAW conversion software has a little different rendering. With my K10D (and to a lesser extent, my K-7) set at "Bright", I often find the default rendering in ACDSee a bit dark (closer to "Natural"). Usually a quick play with the Exposure slider or Gamma (mid-point in the Tone Curve tab) brings you pretty close to the "Pentax" result. Rather, it applies some default sane parameters which should provide a decent result most of the times, at least as a starting point for minimal tweaking. the Pentax utility), ACDSee doesn't try to mimic the camera JPG output (which is highly dependent on many settings, including the chosen "style" (bright, landscape, vivid, etc.), parameters, D-Range/Shadow settings, etc. Like other programs, but maybe contrarily to some others (e.g. I especially like the "Advanced Lighting" tab, which is a truly unique, very powerful, effective, and convenient feature. I recommend ACDSee Pro 4.0 wholeheartedly, particularly because of its excellent RAW converter. I also noticed the PEF files in Acdsee Pro 4 shift a few pixels up when viewed vs the jpg. I'm wondering if the Pentax software is compensating by using the surrounding pixels. The Pentax software seems to recover those areas, while in Acdsee Pro 4, they are shown as blown highlights. I've also noticed one anomoly on areas that are over exposed. My baseline is the PEF from the Pentax software. Unfortunately, my inexperience is preventing me from getting the image to a state I like. When I open PEF files in Acdsee Pro 4, they seem to be darker.
I believe shadow compensation is set to 'low'.Ĭamera settings are generally set to the defaults except for high iso noise reduction, which i have set to off.Ĭropping, Noise reduction and Sharpening I usually do in another application, PaintShop Pro X3, but for the majority of pictures, alittle 'Sensitivity (Ev)' is all I change.
I generally don't tweek any of the settings in the Pentax software except for 'Sensitivity (Ev)' and occasionally 'Dodge'. I specifically like the 'Bright' and 'Vibrant' custom color settings. I specifically like the out of camera color rendition. What cameras, and what specifically do you prefer about the Pentax software? If you can answer that, it should be possible to mimic that look.I'm using a K-x.